Can somebody on DU enlighten me on the basic belief systems of Islam?

[CoffeeAnnan]

I would especially like to know something about the belief in Jihad, what Islam thinks of coexistence with other religions, whether it is a moral duty of Muslims to sacrifice tjemselves for the greater good of Islam, whether women have to be subservient to men in every way.It would also be educational to know whether the practice of honor killing as a way to redeem a family's honor is condoned in Islamic societies.

I have a friend from India who tells me that there was a movement in India ( which is a predominantly Hindu society) for the Muslims to obey what is called a Sharia Law which is separate from the Civil Laws all citizens are required to follow. Is that something Muslims seek worldwide?

[Dogmudgeon]

1. "Jihad"

It doesn't mean "holy war" -- the word is Arabic for "struggle".

Jihad in the religious sense is the struggle with sin. The term has become corrupted to cover such things as holy war. Of course, corruption of original religious doctrines has become the standard practice of most religions.

Women do not have to be subservient to men in Islam. The Quran states that men and women are equal in the eyes of God. The chador, the burqa, and the veil all pre-date Islam. Islam only calls for women (and men) to dress modestly.

Honor killings are forbidden by Shari'a, Islamic holy law. They are "pagan" pre-Islamic practices that survived in spite of Islam.

If you want deeper answers than these, you'd be best off consulting a Muslim Imam involved in outreach and education. There are several with websites.

--p!

[lvx35]

2. On sacrifice

Muslims are called to fight in defense of Islam, literally in battle. As I recall its forbidden for them to kill non-combatants though.

[IChing]

3. You need to also read up on sufism and the wisdom it extolls

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/index.html

A good start on the writings and wisdom of Islam.

[K-W]

4. Remember that Islam is a religion of the oppressed.

It presupposes the fact that there is oppression. Jihad represents the struggle against the oppression.

Jihadists believe they are freeing muslims. It has nothing to do with any holy war on non-muslims. They attack the US because they correctly believe the US is propagandizing the muslim population and funding oppressive muslim regimes.

Like any holy book the Koran is full of information, and the reason this part of it is latched onto by people is the fact that they identify with the opporession.

That is why the answer to terrorism is alleviating the oppression. The idea that oppressed people should struggle to free themselves, violently if neccessary is hardly unique to Islam.

[supernova]

5. The Five Pillars of Islam

These are the heart of Islam, regardless of what branch you follow:

The 'Five Pillars' of Islam are the foundation of Muslim life:


- Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad;
- Establishment of the daily prayers;
- Concern for and almsgiving to the needy;
- Self-purification through fasting; and
- The pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able.

http://www.islam101.com/dawah/pillars.html

[CoffeeAnnan]

6. Where did the idea of having a separate system of laws,Sharia Laws,

distinct from the Civil Laws of a country come from? Is an Islamic person expected to obey this Sharia Law or does the civil Laws override the Sharia Law?

Also, what is meant by a Fatwa? Is that like a death sentence on a person meted out by a religious authority?

[supernova]

7. Well as best I understand it

(I'm not a muslim)

Sharia Law is rather comperable to Mosaic Law.

As for whether you use civil law or Sharia law, tHere are those in the Muslim world who think the thing to do is return to a theocracy using Sharia as the basis for that. The last time that worked was the height of the Ottoman Empire.

Presently, we have a fight about whether you have a civil, modern society based on civil law and science, or you return to a more fundamentalist society based upon the laws of the Qur'ran. Or the Bible for our own, home-grown fundies.

If you want to know a brief history of fundamentailsm, read Karen Armstrong's The Battle for God. She goes into great detail about fundamentalism in the three monotheistic faiths: Xtianity, Judaism, and Islam.

A "fatwa" is simply a religious edict. Anyone can issue one. And others are free to follow it.... or not.

[CoffeeAnnan]

8. One more question.And thanks for your response to my previous question.

When the fatwa against Salman Rushdie was issued by the Iranian clergy,it seemed as though he had no place to hide anywhere in the world. That meant to me that such a fatwa was enforceable beyond the boundaries of the country in which it was issued.Does that mean a Muslim in Iran or Iraq, or Pakistan or Indonesia can carry out that death sentence if he so chooses? Doesn't that say that Bush has a case for considering all Muslims as one entity regardless of what country they belong to?

[Garfield Goose]

15. Wasn't this fatwa...

an edict from the religious leadership to kill Rushdie? I gotta shake my head in wonder at any belief system that specifically states that it is one's duty to kill another because of his beliefs or writings.

[CoffeeAnnan]

17. I want to thank the many people who have responded to my question

on the OP.Although I know somewhat more about Islam, I am left wondering about where the idea of each individual Moslem taking it upon himself to avenge either the honor of his religion or his family's honor or any other act that offends his sense of integrity on his own.For those of us who belong to other religious beliefs or none at all, it is a matter of some concern when someone can feel called upon to carry out an execution of another person or persons in the name of religion.

On Edit: I don't think this problem is that much different from what our own fundamentalists believe in, including their call to wage wars against Moslem nations as a preemptive measure and the veiled calls for a crusade by Bush.

[Frederik]

19. Well, that's not a belief shared by

the vast majority of Muslims. This particular fatwa was issued by the fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, who was the religious and political leader of Iran but who had no authority over Muslims outside of Iran.

[Igel]

23. The fatwa was binding on those that wanted to be bound by it;

presumably by the followers of the group that issued it.

It's basically a license to kill Rushdie, and applies not to any geographic borders, but to the Ummah, the "nation" of Muslims. But not all Muslims recognize the legitimacy of a given fatwa; it depends on the scholar, his reputation and popularity, which "school" of Islam he's in, how he his decision in the Qur'an, in the Hadith, and in the various legal opinions rendered before ijtihad closed (or in the same principles that governed it in the past).

The Rushdie fatwa not enforceable in any normal sense of the word; it's enforceable like a deer tag is "enforceable." It says his blood is "permitted", i.e., no sin is incurred by killing him.

[cally]

11. My understanding of the sharia law is slightly different

I think it comes from earlier tribal law and not from the Koran. That's why many muslim countries do not accept it as valid or part of their faith.

[Vladimir]

12. If I may add a note on the Sunni-Shi'ia split

which could be of interest to people, as I have been reading the so-called "Little Green Book" recently, a collection of the sayings of Ayatollah Khomeini, the religious leader of the Iranian revolution. What follows is a rough paraphrasing of the introduction to the book...

Around the seventh century AD, the Arab (Sunni) armies conquered Persia, and converted it to Islam (its former religion was Zoroastrianism). The blow to the Persian national pride was severe, and not recovered fully until they were reconquered, ironically enough, in the 16th century by Shi'ia Turkoman tribes, headed by a "messiah" called Ismail. The adoptation of Shi'ia Islam thus allowed the Persians to distinguish themselves from their former Arab conquerors, and this gave an added political dimension to the Shi'ia-Sunni spilt, which arose originally over the line of succession of the prophet Mohammed.

[burrowowl]

9. Monotheistic

like Judaism and Christianity.

[garybeck]

10. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are essentially one religion

they all worship the same God. The Koran starts with Adam and Eve. Abraham's first son was Ishmael, who is an ancestor of Muhammad. Christ and Muhammad, in their time, preached unity. Over time people have currupted the teachings and split the people for political reasons.

[CoffeeAnnan]

13. Is the conversion of the "infidels" at the point of a sword or their

killing if they refuse considered a sacred duty of every Moslem? My friend from India told me that the large Moslem population in India ( about 10% of the total population of over one billion), are all people who were originally Hindus but were forcibly converted by Islamic conquerors in the Middle Ages.

On Edit: I also remember that after the Taliban, who are Muslims,ordered the 1000 year old Buddhist sculptures in Afghanistan.Was that considered a sacred act of Muslims?

[Vladimir]

14. Not really

When Serbia was under Turkish occupation, for 500 years at that, there was no massive conversion programme. Some were converted, or more accurately converted to get on in life, but there was little coercion involved. That is just one example, but I am sure there are many others.

[manic expression]

16. When Muslims ruled parts of India...

there was a tax imposed on all Hindus, simply for practicing their religion. Muslims were also treated better by the Moghuls, and so people converted because of this. Yes, many Muslims in India (and Pakistan and Afghanistan...) were converted either forcefully or with a great amount of pressure. Also note that when Shivaji, a Hindu king, won territory from the Muslim Moghuls, there was very little damage to any Mosques and Muslims were not killed, as Hindus sometimes experienced.

Many Muslims were relocated to Pakistan after the Partition, but many are still there. Hindus remain in Pakistan (coincidentally, almost all the Hindus in Pakistan who hold on to their religion are lower-caste, even though bigots would have you believe that oppressing lower-castes is a characteristic of Hinduism...this could not be further from the truth), but they are subject to intense pressure and persecution. India is pretty tolerant of their diverse religions and sects (although tempers have flared and violence has occured, this is rare).

One more thing, the Sikhs, although they combined Hindu and Islamic ideas, have even more grievences with Muslims, since Muslims killed their "head guy" (sorry for my ignorance) very early on.

It is VERY important to remember that the fanatics who did such horrible acts in India do not represent Islam itself at all (this would be like saying that the Crusaders represent Christianity or the Romans who slaughtered 1/3 of all Gauls represent Paganism).

[liberalpragmatist]

25. Somewhat - I'm Hindu but a lot of the "forced conversions"...

... have been showed to have been false. A lot of the history was written by Orientalist British historians who based their history on negative historical experiences with Islam from the Crusades.

Let's not pretend that Moghul rule or Muslim rule was truly enlightened. Yes, there was a tax on all non-Muslims (although there was a special tax for Muslims as well - the Zakat), however, in the vast majority of the country there were no forced conversions. Moghul rulers usually found it advantageous to play off different groups of Hindus and different castes and in most Muslim kingdoms, there were often castes and other Hindu sub-groups that were in favor with the rulers and enjoyed an exalted position.

Also, the claims by some Hindu-nationalist historians that there was some massive Hindu holocaust of hundreds of millions of Hindus is false - there is no historical evidence for that.

By far the most vicious of the Muslim rulers was the notorious conqueror Timurlane, who conquered much of Central Asia and Northern India and laid waste to most areas he conquered. He conquered less for religious reasons though than for simple imperial aspirations.

However, it is noted that the Moghuls really weren't very religious. Hindu nationalists aside, who promote the existence of a temple at Ayodhya (for which there is extremely little historical evidence) that was destroyed by the Muslims, there is no record of Babur - the first Mughal emperor - destroying any Hindu temples or massacring anyone of the other faith. Writings by people in his court never make any mention of some "glorious destruction of the infidels" something any conquerors bent on religious conversion would see exalted in the writings of their contemporaries. In fact, the only idols that Babur was known to have destroyed were Jain idols (Jainism is a largely atheistic religion somewhat similar to Buddhism but very rational and extremely anti-violence) because they were naked. That's what offended his sensibilities more than the actual idols.

Some Hindu temples were destroyed, but the current thinking among credible historians is that these were destroyed for political reasons, often with the assistance of other Hindu castes. For instance, a Muslim ruler would invade a Hindu kingdom (with the assistance of local out-of-power Hindu castes) and they would destroy temples associated with the previous ruler and his ruling castes. Later a new temple would be built by the kings allied castes. Often the same thing happened when a Hindu kingdom conquered another Hindu kingdom.

You do mention the killing of one of the Sikhs top Gurus by Aurangzeb, one of the later Mughal rulers. It is from that point on that Sikhism adopted the militaristic symbolism associated with their faith.

Musim influence was strongest in Western India. The place where there was the most Muslim "pressure" to convert to Islam was in Sindh - a province now in Pakistan, where ultimately 80% of the province became Muslim. That was conquered very early on, by the same Arab conquerors who conquered Persia/Iran, and like in Persia/Iran the Hindus like the Zoroastrians were subjected to major pressure to convert. Over time, most did, although Sindh actually remained a highly tolerant place up until partition, when most of the Hindus (20% of the population) left. Even Sikhs generally had good relations with Muslims in the earlier part of the 20th Century.

Islam managed to make a lot of conversions directly from Buddhism. The areas that are now in Pakistan were largely Buddhist at the time of Islamic conquest. For reasons that aren't entirely understood, Buddhists proved particularly prone to conversions - that may have been because they lacked power and found it easiest to convert.

Gradually, of course, particularly in areas ruled by Muslims, many Hindus did convert, particularly those of out-of-power castes who could use their newfound faith to find an exalted position.

It should be noted that until the time of the British, nobody saw India as a conflict between Hindus and Muslims. The term "Hindu" was a European invention - most Indians simply saw Muslims as yet another group in a mosaic of faiths and philosophies - their was no dichotomy, no bicommunal conflict. Conflicts did arise, but they were like any normal conflicts between different communities throughout the world and much of it was political, not religious.

These days, there are very few Hindus left in Pakistan, largely because Pakistan was clearly defined as a "Muslim" state. Sindh - 20% Hindu at the time of partition is now only 5% or so. Pakistani Punjab, which was nearly 50% Hindu and Sikh at the time of partition, was less than 1% Hindu and Sikh a year later. Hindu populations in the border regions were very slim even before partition but are absolutely gone now. East Bengal - now Bangladesh - retained a large portion of Hindus, but gradually it has dwindled from 45% at the time of partition to about 8-10% today - the result of creeping fundamentalism in Bangladesh, which historically followed a very tolerant, non-dogmatic strain of Islam.

[Igel]

24. The Balkans were a very strange case.

The Ottomans didn't really colonize most of the peninsula, and they were, of course, Turks.

Still, there was a child levy on Christian villages at times; churches were forced to have entrances low enough to force the worshippers to stoop, a sign of humility. The Ottomans also nicely played ethnicities against each other, and even imported Turks into Bosnia. And Muslims had pride of place in society, with all the advantages, and with non-Muslims having to show due deference, their word not counting for much in court against a Muslim, and the like--so that a Muslims could extort from non-Muslims in the right circumstances, and in a he-said/he-said legal case, the Muslim had to win (and in 2 non-Muslims against 1 Muslim, it was a tie, which wasn't really a tie). There's a reason that the Croats and the Serbs both hated the Muslim Bosnians, and don't much like the Albanians: it's centuries old.

Fortunately for the Balkans, the number of Muslims was kept relatively small, many of the rules not enforced well, and it was easy for the Orthodox and Catholic churches to maintain their flocks and language. The Qur'anic language was Arabic, but that wasn't the language of the conquerors, so Arabization couldn't occur, and Turkicization didn't, either. It was also the wrong kind of Islam, in many respects more tolerant than the variety dominant from S. Turkey to Morocco. And until recently there was no attempt by Muslims to deny the people their history, unlike what was done in most of the Middle East. The Turks were newcomers to the region, and everybody knew it--they couldn't try to say that some shrine in Greece was actually Turkish.

It was about the same in India and points east: it was hard for non-Arabs, without the linguistic/cultural support of the Qur'an, to reshape all of society, and they didn't have quite enough time to do it in isolation like the Arabs and Persians did, taking centuries to wipe out the peoples and cultures that preceded them.

[K-W]

26. All religions were spread by force until fairly recently in history nt

[hel]

18. Depends on what kind of Islam you are talking about.

Shia and Sunni sects have a lot of different practices. Turks and Arabs see things quite differently, they usually don't even agree on the starting dates of Ramadan or Eids. Then there are the Wahhabis, who insist the Koran and the words and deeds of Mohammed should be the way of life for any Muslim anytime, anywhere. And the Iranians. And others I can't remember now...

Islam has always been divided through mostly nationalistic lines like this. To give you an example, Ottoman Empire was a Turkish empire and had conquered the title of 'Caliph' along with holy sites. Arabs never really liked it, and didn't flinch to fight alongside Westeners against the order of Jihad of the Caliph of the time (Ottoman Sultan).

I don't buy that Islam is a peaceful religion. Just like we judge a person, I judge an idelogy by its deeds, not only its book necessarily. Nations carrying the Islamic banner never had peace in history. It was the way of life for Ottomans at the height of their power (an empire spanning three continents), their entire economy depended on conquest. They didn't convert non-Muslims forcefully, they just forced them to convert through psychological and economical means.

Sharia Law is a scourge for any progressive person in any country, especially for women. I would rather leave my beloved country (Turkey) to avoid living under Sharia rule.

Don't judge any Muslim by what others do in the name of his/her religion, but judge any person by what he stands for and stands against. I don't think too highly of any Muslim who insists that Sharia is a good idea, or doesn't raise his voice against the fundamentalist terrorism of any kind.

[Frederik]

20. Well, nations carrying the Christian banner

haven't had much peace throughout history either. They have mostly been busy conquering, killing, raping, looting, plundering and committing genocide.

[Tsiyu]

21. Exactly

Muhammed was banished to Medina when he started "preaching" Allah's word. There was much fighting between the Meccans and the Medinites. He participated in raffias- raids on other tribes and peoples, so there is a history there of conquest through violence rather than peaceful conversion, but this is also the case with the Old Testament activities of the early Jewish people. Lots of war and bloodshed and death and pillaging in both faiths.

The striking thing about both Islam and CHristianity is the call to care about the poor and the needy. If you do not care for the weakest among you, you can't be a true member of either faith. This means that Fundies like * and his buddies in Saudi Arabia are not practicing what their "good books" preach and they are therefore all condemned to hell for being greedy, self-centered people.

Both faiths have been corrupted and perverted by the self-serving in humankind. Sharia is the same as the wish of all those Fristians who want all Americans to live according to old Testament rules ( not all of the rules, of course. Only the ones they like.)

[liberalpragmatist]

28. Isn't the history of the world Conquest and Pillage?

I'm not Muslim and certainly terrible things have been committed by some Muslims. But isn't that the history of the world? I'm very skeptical when people point to historical wars as examples of Islam's intolerance.

Isn't war and conquest the history of the world? You mention that the Ottomon Empire was constantly trying to expand its borders - isn't that what EVERY empire in history has done? The Romans, the Byzantines, the Russians, the British, the Carolingians, etc?

Historically, kings were always trying to conquer neighboring lands. When they did, usually the subjugated people endured great oppression. Usually they would demonize the other people, bringing up any differences they could find - religion was one tool in that arsenal, but language and culture were others.

Most of these conflicts were clearly political. For people to tie everything to Islam is ridiculous. We don't claim that every European war was the result of trying to convert others to Christianity.

Like any religion, Islam has very tolerant, noble aspects and very negative impulses as well. People will make of it what they will. In any religious text of any faith you can find a justification for virtually anything, even literal justifications. Do you believe in religious tolerance and compassion? If so, you can find passages that directly support your views in both the Bible and Qu'ran. Do you believe in intolerance, bigotry, and war? If so you can also find similar passages in both the Bible and the Qu'ran.

And you ignore that under the Abbasids and under Saladin, Islam, then under a golden age, was far more tolerant towards Christians and Jews than Christians were to Muslims. Western Europe, then in very hard times, economically and politically during the Midieval times, was a far more intolerant and closed-minded place that instigated the Crusades in a quest for regaining glory for a region that had fallen on hard times.

You also ignore very tolerant Islamic rule of Spain, for example, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived in complete peace and harmony for centuries before the Reconquista.

Painting Islam as a "warlike" faith with a broad brush is simply inaccurate. And to claim that Islamic countries were warlike because they did what every kingdom and empire has historically done - gone to war and conquered other countries - is losing sight of the greater picture.

[hel]

29. I wasn't comparing Islam to Christianity or any other organized religion.

"Islam is not a peaceful religion" does not mean others are. Just one word, Crusades, will bloody the image of Christianity forever. That is not my point however.

If we have to compare faiths here, let me give all of you some insight into the religion I was raised with. Islam's book is based on war and a capitalist economic mindset. It is not as unworldly as Jesus' teachings was. It is extremely direct in commanding a way of life (from how to pray to how to treat one's wife), reflects on even trivial local issues of its day(such as washing oneself with sand when there is no water to be found), and not negotiable in any way (even doubting the book in her mind will damn a Muslim forever). It tells when and how much of one's wealth to give to the poor, it commands to reopen shops after Friday prayer, it recreates a society in a rigid image. All well and good up to a point. Another good thing, it tells Muslims not to force people of other books (namely Christians and Jews) into converting, if they are behaving themselves, i.e. not trying to spread their religion among Muslims.

Then there is the bad part. The others (than Muslims, Christians or Jews) should be converted in any way possible. If one leaves Islam by choice, the book says that person committed the greatest crime and must be hunted down. That little thing was what got Salman Rushdie into trouble, not Satanic Verses in itself. Jihad is every Muslim's foremost duty against the enemy of Islam . When you interpret America or Christianity in general as fighting / torturing Muslims (through trying to 'modernize' Middle East, for example), Al Qeaeda's Jihad is a perfect example of what the Koran orders.

It gives a man the right to beat his wife. The woman is not equal to a man, two woman's testimony equals one man's in Sharia court. Woman are created to serve, accompany, and also test the man, tease him into committing sin. They are prone to foolishness, sin, and must be set right by their men. If the woman obeys her man, does as ordered, and performs her duties well, then she should be treated nicely. Sounds pretty much like a pet dog to me. Okay, dogs don't tease a man sexually. I, as a woman, cannot accept or respect any of these. Period.


I'm not talking about any history here. I'm talking about today. I'm talking about what happened in your country, in UK, and in mine. That is one face of Islam, and none of us should try to bury this fact under our progressive values. That gets you all into a loop you must break free of. Like I said, I will respect any Muslim who has the progressive values I care deeply about in his heart and mind, as much as any other person. But those values do not encompass or permit Sharia Law, or an Islam as it is practiced under Taliban rule or in Saudia Arabia.

[liberalpragmatist]

30. Fair points all

My point is that every religious text has extremely admirable viewpoints and ones that are less so. I'm not challenging that today's Islamic societies as a whole are quite intolerant and lean far too heavily into the militant and backward aspects.

I however do not feel like painting any faith with a broad brush or try to claim that a religion IS A CERTAIN WAY. My own readings into these texts and their histories leads me to no other conclusion than a religion is whatever ones followers make of it.

[Yupster]

22. The best place I've found

on the net to get answers about Islam is

www.askimam.com

It's a very practical website wheer anyone can e-mail a question about Islam to a group of religious leaders who will answer them.

Most of the questions are very practical about Islam in the modern world. A lot of the questions have to do with Muslims who have come to the west and have questions about how thoroughly they can participate in western society and still keep loyal to their faith.

It's a very interesting site with thousands of questions and answers.

It has a search feature where you can search for the topic you're interested in and get questions about that topic and their answers.

Give it a try.

[liberalpragmatist]

27. Islam means submission

Submission to God. It stresses humility and charity and has historically been relatively tolerant to other faiths compared with Christianity. The Qu'ran for example generally stresses compassion and tolerance of "people of the book" (generally interpreted to mean Monotheists - Jews and Christians, but sometimes expanded to include Hindus and other faiths). There's even a passage that says something like (and I'm paraphrasing) "there shall be no compulsion in religion" and one that says that "Jews, Nazareans (Christians), and Zoroastrians will have their day with the lord."

That said, like any religious book, there are both tolerant passages and warlike passages. Muhammad was both a religious leader and a political leader, so there are passages in the Qu'ran, written during times of war and conquest, that urge Muslims to "slay the unbelievers" and to "slay the infidels." Those passages of the Qu'ran are more akin to the Old Testament than the New Testament.

The biggest emphasis on Islam is in charity. Islam is constantly calling for compassion and justice for the poor. One of the five tenet of Islam is the Zakat - a tax on all Muslims for the purposes of charity.

The place of women according to the Qu'ran is mixed. Like many faiths, although probably better than a literal reading of the Bible. Women are seen as the equal of men before the Gods, and some progressive Muslims insist that women should be considered able to be in the clergy, considering that many early leaders of Islam and early followers of Muhammad were women - including many that led his first prayers. Muhammed's wife was also a rich merchant-woman. Some have said that Islam was impacted by the earlier Arabian mentality, where, like in many nomadic societies, women enjoyed a higher place than in sedentary societies - the impact of more settled areas like Mesopotamia led to greater seclusion. The veiling of women comes from pre-Islamic customs in much of the Arab world.

Islam shares quite a bit with Judaism and Christianity. In fact, many scholars have pointed out that Islam is actually more similar to Judaism than Christianity (ironic given the rampant anti-Semitism in many modern Islamic societies). Sh'aria was a set of laws that governed Islamic society at the time of the Qu'ran and that is codified in the Qu'ran, much like Mosaic law is codified in the Torah. There is generally a big debate in the Muslim world (which the fundamentalists are currently winning) over the role of Shariah. Some argue that strict Shariah law must be implemented in line with ancient times (in truth, it was probably never as dogmatic - the rise of modern communications means that totalitarianism can exist where none previously could have). Others argue that it needs to reinterpreted in the light of modern-day teachings. Still others say it should influence but not dictate modern law. Still others say it should be replaced with modern secular law.

Ultimately, Islam, like any faith is highly complex. There are beautiful aspects to it and uglier aspects. There is plenty a progressive, tolerant Muslim can latch onto but also a lot that a fundamentalist can latch onto. Religion is like that.

For info on Islam, some good places:

This is a great discussion on the place of tolerance and modernity in Islam - very balanced, very fair, very thorough:

http://bostonreview.net/BR26.6/elfadl.html

http://en.wikipedia.org - do a search for Islam, also search a history of the crusades - it's quite enlightening.

http://www.religioustolerance.org

Also, try this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679640401/qid=1121020537/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-9322753-8692708?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

AND this one:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0345384563/ref=pd_sim_b_2/104-9322753-8692708?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

For a more negative view of Islam, try this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312327005/qid=1121020640/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/104-9322753-8692708?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

And for a more positive view:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060582723/qid=1121020640/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl14/104-9322753-8692708?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

(Actually, both call for largely the same thing - just the first has a more negative view of the history of Islam, the second a more positive view)

Also, you might want to look into Sufism which is a very tolerant, liberal, mystical form of Islam that has historically been very popular in Iran, India, Central Asia, and generally in villages and among lay people (it's been under attack by fundamentalists for decades and has thus dwindled in much of the Arab world, where it once was highly influential, particularly in Egypt).